Erling Haaland took to social media to react to Manchester City’s 2-1 win over Newcastle United.
Erling Haaland was embroiled in a fascinating physical battle with Newcastle United defender Dan Burn during Manchester City’s 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium.
It was an unorthodox game for the Norwegian goal machine as he set a personal record for most touches in a Premier League match while also grabbing an assist for Nico O’Reilly’s second goal, which proved to be the winner.
Despite Haaland scoring 153 times in 184 appearances for Manchester City, his goal record against Newcastle is poor by his high standards.
Erling Haaland reacts to win v NUFC
After scoring in his first appearance against Newcastle in a 3-3 draw at St James’ Park, Haaland has failed to score in each of his last nine outings against Eddie Howe’s side. Although Man City have scored 24 goals against Newcastle since Haaland’s arrival, he has been responsible for just one.
Part of that is down to the signfiicant physical effort deployed by Newcastle’s defenders to try and keep him quiet. On Saturday evening, Burn was tasked with the challenge which led to an intriguing battle between the two.
Burn picked up an early yellow for his troubles tussling with Haaland but didn’t let that deter him. Haaland meanwhile, clearly enjoyed the battle as he took to Instagram after the match to share an image of Burn pulling his shirt over his face as he attempted to grapple to Newcastle defender.
He accompanied it with the caption: “Another day at the office.”
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Pep Guardiola praises Erling Haaland
Despite Haaland not scoring, Man City boss Pep Guardiola was keen to praise his striker following the match.
“Erling Haaland today was the man of the match for me,” Guardiola said. “The man of the match. Because of the fight with Burn against man marking, you have to play more direct.
“And if you don't win that ball or fight that ball 50-50, no chance. He did it. So, many, many who think it's a perfect game, no. It's an ideal game, no.
“But you are a team. What you have to do in these stages, in the Champions League games, in the Premier League games, in teams like Newcastle - this is what you have to do.”
Dan Burn on Man City battle
Despite the defeat, Burn spoke of his pride following Newcastle’s performance which came just days after returning from a Champions League away match against Qarabag in Azerbaijan.
“I think that just shows the character that we've got in this team that we kept going right till the very end,” Burn said. “At the end of the day we're still being beat so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference, but I think just sort of within the changing room we felt that's probably, we felt equal to City today and I don't think we felt that very much coming here.
“I said like obviously a long week of travel and I think if you looked at the game you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between the two teams if you'd said City had a week to prepare and we sort of travelled 10,000 miles or whatever it was. So yeah, pretty proud of the lads.”
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